There was a running joke in the movie JCVD how VD and Seagal were always in competetion for the same roles. Steven won. There does seem to be a constant stream of Seagal product being released from Blues albums to reality TV, to an action/adventure show to a series of direct to DVD movies with Seagal being the advisor, and "professional" actor to the latest rapper attempting to start an acting career before the next big thing in Hip-Hop comes along and ends their three year reign near the top of the charts.
Now that I've seen it... HOLY SHIT THIS FILM IS ALL KINDS OF AWESOME! But yeah, it's way too short. I wanted MORE! Spoiler: the story The plutonium plot kinda drowns in the revenger plot. It would have been neat to have some sort of save the world climax where they have to stop a bomb to go off. That way we would have had a little more Van Damme and a little more edge to the whole thing.
Saw it tonight and thought it was the best action flick I've seen this year. It alone probably had a higher body count than all the action films since Expendables 1 combined. Over the top and insane with a story somewhere drowned out by gunfire and one-liners. It's a fun romp.
Jackie Chan, Nic Cage, Wesley Snipes and Milla Jovovich in advance negotiations to join cast. http://blog.seattlepi.com/thepudger...llia-jovovich-in-advance-negotations-to-join/
Here's hoping for a proper Li/Chan mash. It's too bad something so long-awaited and epic had to be wasted on a piece of crap like The Forbidden Kingdom.
The film is excellent until they attack the mine. Then it becomes too rushed. I wonder what happened there. The airport battle is a mess, it feels like someone just randomly edited stuff together and had only a day to do so. There should have been a confrontation between Van Damme and Stallone inside the mines. Van Damme kicks Stallone's ass and wins the fight, but can't kill Stallone because the other Expendables come to the rescue. Stallone gets extremely pissed, and that's how he wins the second fight against Van Damme at the airport. The inclusion of Arnold, Chuck and Bruce could have been less random as well. Chuck shows up out of thin air the first time, that is fine. But then he should have been the one who gets second thoughts and returns to the mine to rescue the Expendables. Together they head off to the airport. At some point Van Damme talks about a buyer that is willing to pay 4 million a kilo now. Bruce Willis should have been that buyer, as a plan B in case the Expendables fail. His escort is Schwarzenegger and a couple of nameless mercenaries. They meet in a hangar at the airport. But the trade goes wrong, because Van Damme is a lunatic. And then the Expendables show up, team up with Bruce and Arnold, and start shooting Van Damme's goons to bits and pieces.